Reagan was for big government in terms of agencies / programs such as the CIA, the FBI, the military and warfare. Reagan was against Big Government when it means programs for public health, public housing, public welfare, tobacco control and elimination.

[Note similar contempt for RTLers in the George Bush White House, cited by DavidKuo, TemptingFaith: An InsideStory of PoliticalSeduction (2006). (Interview).]
Here is background on Conservative Contempt for the Religous Right:
"The abortion issue provides an example of how rightist politiciansuse religiosity in pursuit of political goals. In the late 1960's, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and other conservative leaderssupported a woman's right to safe and legal abortion," says Prof. Michael Parenti, Ph.D., Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), Chapter 1, "The Politics of Religiosity," p 42-43. "While governor of California, Ronald Reagan supported and signed into law one of the nation's most liberal abortion bills. Roe vs. Wade was decided by the Nixon-appointed Burger Supreme Court. In December 1969, while serving in the [U.S.] House of Representatives, Bush endorsed free choice on abortion," says Parenti, Myths, supra, p 179.
"Conservatives had long maintained that the poor produced too many babies. More abortions would mean less children on welfare. But conservatives also cast about [1 Peter 5:8 style] for noneconomic issues that cut across class lines such as school prayers, homophobia, sexism, pornography in the arts, racism, affirmative action, family values, and fear of crime issues that might win support from modest-income voters who would otherwise have no common cause with the Right. When they discovered that working-class Roman Catholic and fundamentalist Protestant votes could be gleaned on the abortion issue, rightistpoliticians soon became supporters of compulsory pregnancy, in what was one of the most dramatic flip-flops of modern American politics," says Parenti, Myths, supra, p 43.
Rev. S. R. Shearer reveals the actual pro-death beliefs of such people, in "How the GOP and its ally, the Religious Right, have created a Death Cult" (10 February 2012) ("Contemporary conservatism is bent on destroying the social safety net (basic programs such as Social Security and unemployment insurance). . . . As recent data suggests, poverty leads to death and a diminished lifespan. When the ... Republicans stand against food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and other programs for those displaced by the Great Recession, through actions both direct and indirect, they are in fact killing people.")
Tories/monarchists aka conservatives may have to use religious issues to win, but conservatives retain their contempt for them!
And see also "24 Ways Republicans Lie" (26 August 2002).

"The massive (but under-reported) Reagan Administration corruption" (2008) ("By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever," from p. 184, Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years, by Haynes Johnson, (1991, Doubleday)")

the very conservative site Jesus-is-Savior.com/Wolves/reagan.htm came to many of the very same conclusions . . . i.e. (in their own words): "Let us remember Reagan as he really was: Liar, Thief, Mass murderer, Supporter of abortion, War criminal, Destroyer of freedom, Traitor of the American people, Corporate whore,
Destroyer of the environment, Supporter of Satanists & child murderers "

"The Reagan administration . . . strategy was to stop . . . economic development, education, health services, and political organization. Tactics adopted to achieve this end [goal] were destructive of cooperatives, state farms, schools and health clinics; terrorism in the countryside and kidnapping of peasants; and sabotage of the economic infrastructure . . . For the victims of Reagan's 'contra' terrorists the war [included] pregnant women impaled with bayonets, children maimed, people of both sexes with genitals amputated, eyes gouged out, then summarily executed," says Philip Agee, On the Run (Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1987), Chapter XV, "The Solidarity Circuit," pp 374-375.

"Downing of Flight 655 was state-sponsored terrorism" (3 July 2008) ("The U.S. Navy's guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes, shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew members, including 66 children.")

Paul Krugman, "[Reagan's] Zombies" (New York Times, 23 August 2009) ("Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.")

Robert Parry, "Reagan's 30-Year Time Bombs" (28 January 2011) ("The time element of '30 years' keeps slipping into American official reports and news stories
about the origins of crises – the latest in 'The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report' – but rarely is the
relevance of the three-decade span explained, and there is a reason. . . . Our whore media will protect the Republicans by saying, 'Jobs are more scarce that at any time in the last 30 years,' but they don't want you to do the math and figure out Reagan was the culprit. . . . Indeed, many of today’s worst national and international problems can be traced to misjudgments and malfeasance from the Reagan years – from the swelling national debt to out-of-control banks, from the decline of the U.S. middle class to the inaction on energy independence, from the rise of Islamic fundamentalism to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.")

Richard Meister, "Ronald Reagan, Enemy of the American Worker" (2 February 2011) ("The 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth is coming up in February, and before the inevitable gushing over what a wonderful leader he was begins, let me get in a few words about what sort of a leader he really was. Ronald Reagan was, above all, one of the most viciously anti-labor presidents in American history, one of the worst enemies the country's working people ever faced.")

For quips, quotes, quaeres, qualms, quandaries, and quiddities by, for, from, about, and of Ronald Reagan, see "Cowboys and Idiots -- The Reagan Years" in Angelfire's Commonsense Almanac (When you go there, don't forget this: "The power of accurate observation is called cynicism by those who have not got it." -- George Bernard Shaw.)

Note also Reagan's acalculia (inability to comprehend simple arithmetic). George Bush (1989-1993) called Reagan's acalculia, “voodoo economics” (increase spending, cut income, balance budget)! As a layman, Bush could detect something wrong with Reagan, but called it "voodoo" as unaware of the applicability of the medical term "acalculia."

Reagan had the typical lawless druggie attitude typical of tobacco druggies, including “rebellion” and “a considerable feeling of defiance for authority and the individuating thrill of setting aside some rule,” tobacco addict symptoms cited by Maurice J. Barry, Jr., M.D., in "Psychologic Aspects of Smoking," 35 Staff Meetings of Mayo Clinic (#13) 386 (22 June 1960), p 387. Reagan's lawless attitude was typified by his psychopathic view that government is not the solution, it is the problem!, i.e., the druggie view that rules are the problem! Accordingly, in Reagan's lawless administration, "[h]is [Casey's] view of the law—minimum compliance and minimum disclosure—had permeated the Reagan foreign policy enterprise . . . a demonstration of willfulness," cited in Bob Woodward, VEIL: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p 505.

For background on the Marine Barracks Explosion, see "Haunting memories of the blast that shock the world: Beirut Bombing 25 years later" (USA Today, 23 October 2008). "Reagan insisted those Marines be housed on land even after the Joint Chiefs told him ships would be safer because the Lebanon suicide bombers hadn't yet learned how to make a truck fly - so suicide bombs would only work on land, but Reagan insisted. So we lost 241 Marines that day, because Reagan was too stubborn to trust [American] generals, but since the media wants their Reagan myth preserved, they leave some important facts out. Also, they fail to mention that a few years later, Reagan gave these terrorists weapons. Yes, after they murdered 241 Marines, Reagan and Bush did business with them, just like Bush did business with Saddam, Noriega and the Mullahs in Iran."--Bartcop.

Once Reagan died, "The contra war, the military buildup, the growing inequality, the attack on unions, the alliance with the Islamic crazies -- including Osama Bin Laden -- in Afghanistan, the embrace of Saddam Hussein, the crazy SDI star wars systems, the support for white South Africa etc., etc. . . had 'disappeared' from view like an Argentinean dissident from the same era," says Danny Schechter, "Commentary of June 7, 2004." And: "During the 1984 campaign, Reagan stood in front of a senior citizens' project built under a program he tried to kill -- but his aides didn't care, concluding that the pictures were more important than the reporters' contrary words."

"In his 1988 book, On Bended Knee, author Mark Hertsgaard complained that 'news accounts generally failed to make clear the real-world implications of Reagan's inability or unwillingness to distinguish fact from fiction.'

"As a result of his [Reagan's] achievements [for evil], the typical liberal Member of Congress today sits to the right of Richard Nixon on a number of economic issues, including tax policy." -- Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, D.C., "Ronald Reagan's legacy" (Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services, 7 June 2004).

And: "His economic policies were mostly a failure. Partly this was because [of his brain damage, acalculia] he had promised something arithmetically impossible: to increase military spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget. He kept the first two promises, delivering the largest peacetime military build-up in American history, and cutting taxes massively, mostly for upper-income households.

"But budget deficits soared to record heights. The national debt doubled, as a percentage of the economy, before Mr. Reagan's successors were able to bring it under control. . . . And income was redistributed to the wealthy as never before: During the 1980s, most of the country's income gains went to the top 1 or 2 percent of households."

Reagan never warned the American people of the devastation he planned to wreak, see for example his 20 January 1981 Inaugural Address: no warning there!
The effect of Reaganism + Bushism = Overwhelming Deficit Wrecking Budget Balancing.
See also Thom Hartmann, "Profiling CEOs and Their Sociopathic Paychecks" (CommonDreams.org, 27 July 2009) ("Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US . . . Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available." -- citing the Wall Street Journal).
This is yet another evil result of Reaganism. Reagan was in essence a Tory. "Tory" is a word referring to the unAmerican notion of support of anti-democratic monarchical notions of upper class superiority and divine right, of economic-social-political inequality, of hostility to the Bible "Jubilee" principles, being pro-slavery (aka 'right to work for nothing'), etc. Background on Toryism is provided by Edward C. Rogers in his Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (1855), Chapter VII, pp 60, etc. The American Revolution 1776-1783 and the Civil War (1861-1865) were fought against Tories / Reaganism. Reagan was a throw-back to the monarchism attitude that Americans had fought against, and must be on guard against.
Such Toryism means that “the conservative goal is the Third Worldization of America, to reduce the U.S. working populace to a Third World condition, having people work harder and harder for less and less. This includes a return to the ‘free market,’ free of environmental regulations, free of consumer protections, minimum wages, occupational safety, and labor unions, a market crowded with underemployed labor, so better to depress wages and widen profit margins. Conservatives also seek the abolition of human services and other forms of public assistance that give people some buffer against free-market forces. Underemployment is a necessary condition for Third Worldization,” says Prof. Michael Parenti, Against Empire (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995), Chapter 3, “Voodoo Economics: The Third Worldization of America,” p 170.

Thus “conservatives are for weak or strong government depending on what class interests are being served,” p 160.
“While insisting that they want to get government ‘off our backs,’ conservative supply-siders do not hesitate to use government to intrude upon our private lives and our most intimate moral choices, be it school prayers, flag worshiping, library censorship, or compulsory pregnancy,” p 160.

“Big business is always ready to pocket all the profits and socialize the costs. Thus the toxins that industry creates are called our toxic waste problem, not Dupont or Exxon’s. The big corporations just reap the profits from the production process that creates such poisons, while the taxpayers pick up the disposal costs,” p 161.

Example re Appalachia: Corporate mine owners “turned the land into slag heaps and toxic waste dumps. . . . Yet no one suggested that the mine owners pay for the social costs they left in their wake. The diseconomies of capitalism are treated as the public’s responsibility. Corporate America skims the cream and leaves the bill for us to pay, then boasts about how productive and efficient it is and complains about our wasteful government,” p 162.
For more on Tories' depraved anti-people, pro-monarchical attitudes and role, see Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855), pp 43, 45, 49, 50, 56, 58, 59, 60,
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 75, 76, 77, 78, 82, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 97, 98, 100, 101, 104, 106, and 107.

Notwithstanding these long and well-documented facts, conservatives regularly fight anti-tobacco laws, while denouncing effects of not having such laws! And they deliberately appoint pro-tobacco types as judges to strike down efforts to control tobacco. Reagan did this, e.g., smoker Chief Justice Wm. Rehnquist who voted to strike down FDA efforts to prevent tobacco use among children. And other judges who struck down efforts to enforce the federal safety law 5 USC § 7902.(d), which mandates to “eliminate work hazards and health risks,” of which tobacco is notoriously No. 1, the worst killer in terms of sheer numbers. Reagan also cancelled anti-tobacco efforts of the prior administration, including efforts to discourage smoking among young people. Reagan as soon as took office, rejected such efforts.